Has your computer ever re-drawn the screen slowly? Or has a lagging program ever turned black or duplicated itself like this as you try to drag it around? You can alleviate these slow-downs and even prevent GDI driver-mode related crashes by using Windows Aero, available in Windows Home Premium and higher editions. You can tell if Aero is on by looking at the top of almost any window. If the window controls (known as caption buttons) are touching the edge,…

Tip: Use Conversation view in Outlook to find related messages from other foldersYou save: About an hour a week Have you ever received a reply to an email and wanted to look at the other messages in the chain? What if the other messages were already moved into other folders? Or if you wanted to look at messages you sent? In the dark ages, finding all these related emails required digging though folder after folder, hoping you weren’t missing any. In the…

Users that have immediate, unfettered access to their resources and information are more reliable, better performing, and happier. When a workforce is more reliable, better performing, and happier, the entire business benefits with better SLAs, less turnover, and happier clients. User Experience Optimization is taking steps to consolidate and simplify the user experience, and is proven to have a very real and direct impact on a business’s ability to function profitably. Before we look at what makes an optimal interface, let’s look at what…

Back in December of ‘06, I was asked to come up with artwork for a team, the Moore Storms. Although I never took it further, I re-discovered a rough draft I came up with while digging through some archives. If you aren’t familiar with the meteorological symbols, here they are in order, following the tornado: snow storm, hurricane, thunderstorm, cold front, and dust storm.

My thoughts after noticing the incredible pace and significance of recent papers in the scientific community… On several occasions, I have yielded to my inner nerd and shared with friends how much I’d desire to have been born a few centuries later, to grow up in a world not unlike Roddenberry’s fictional universe. As any dedicated Trekkie will gladly discuss at length, many of the principles and concepts in the series were inspired either directly or indirectly by actual scientific…

I’ve shared my favorite desktop apps and tools several times, now it’s time to discuss a device that is more intimate in nature. It’s hard to overstate the significance of the object that is so ubiquitous. For many, it is the first thing we see when we wake up, and the last thing we see when we go to sleep. It’s in our possion more than any other item. It knows every person you communicate with, everywhere you go, and…

A few months ago, a colleague of mine mentioned that our generation is taking over. I thought it was a interesting comment, but didn’t think of it again until he mentioned months later on the popularity of Windows 7. “Windows 7 is our generation’s answer to Windows being lame until now.” I don’t think Windows was ever lame, but it is true that Windows 7’s user experience was really re-thought with our generation’s ideas about productivity in mind. Today I…

Why do I love Windows 7? Today, because it lets me multitask like never before. Right now, I have no less than 16 applications running. One of those is a virtual PC of Windows 2000 that I use to connect to my workplace (they use a legacy VPN system). So really, I’m running two full operating systems and dozens of applications… But you’d never know because the computer is as zippy as ever. I can minimize, switch, resize, move, compute,…

Google Chrome’s popup blocker actually allows all popups to load, it just hides them from view. The popup doesn’t even know, so to speak, that it has been blocked. Content is still downloaded and rendered, off screen. If you choose to allow that popup instance, the window is drawn and you see the content that has already rendered: no refreshing or reloading. I actually prefer this behavior. When Internet Explorer blocks a popup and you choose to allow it, the…

Disclaimer: At the time of this writing, I work in the Customer Management division of Convergys. My opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer. I work in in outsourced customer service, and I think my company does a great job of it. In my experience, I see that we perform and operate as our clients expect, and great care is taken to deliver service in the manner they intend their customers to experience. And we should…

Of the things we take for granted, instantaneous global communication is perhaps the most far-reaching. But it’s such a recent advancement. A mere 50 years ago, the only way to communicate overseas was by a letter and a boat. Where it took weeks to have correspondence before, the first trans-Atlantic cable allowed us to have – get this – 30 simultaneous voice calls going on at once. Thirty! It truly is amazing how far we’ve come in that 50 years. …

I saw this on Slashdot earlier. Very interesting! “Think hanging chads, illegal purges of the voter rolls, and insecure voting machines are bad? The New Yorker looks back at how we used to vote back in the good old days: ‘A man carrying a musket rushed at him. Another threw a brick, knocking him off his feet. George Kyle picked himself up and ran. He never did cast his vote. Nor did his brother, who died of his wounds. The Democratic candidate for Congress,…